Philip Davies: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said in the first place, he would know that I made it clear that I was talking abut industry output. It was not about selling off land; it was about the industry output of 30,000 UK factories. I hope that that has clarified the position.

Philip Davies: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There seems to be a new tactic: the hon. Members at the very back of the Labour Benches ask me to come on to my points, then the promoter of the Bill anticipates them. That is kind and generous of him, but I shall try to make some progress. I am not sure why Labour Members are so reluctant for me to do so.
	The Bill is intended to:
	"Extend the application of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 to the acquisition and disposal of substantial shareholdings by private equity companies; and for connected purposes."
	Responding to an intervention that I made, the hon. Member for Nottingham, East tried to define "substantial shareholdings". He said that it was defined in the explanatory notes, but I have not had them, as I made clear. From his response to my intervention, I am still not sure what a "substantial shareholding" is, and what constitutes a shareholding that might be considered a controlling interest. For example, there has recently been great controversy about Sky's stake in ITV, which I believe is about 17.9 per cent. A lot of people say that it gives Sky too much power, but I am not sure whether such shareholdings would be covered by the Bill. Does a controlling interest mean that someone must have more than 50 per cent. of the shares in a business? Will he be clearer about what he means by "substantial shareholdings"?
	Key features of the Bill include the imposition of information and consultation of employees obligations similar to those that apply in the context of a business transfer. The Bill would also make void post-acquisition changes to contracts of employment unless the changes were made for an economic, technical or organisational reason. The Bill would restrict the ability to vary or rescind any union recognition agreement following an acquisition, and would introduce a new right to apply to court to seek an injunction to prevent a transaction from being completed until ICE obligations were complied with.
	The combination of collective redundancy consultation obligations, rights under collective agreements, and ICE agreements already provide employees with a broad range of protections and rights to receive information and take part in consultation. If those mechanisms are used as part of a constructive dialogue, they should be sufficient to protect employees during all share acquisitions. As far as I can see, the Bill affords additional protection in two main respects. First, it protects trade union recognition, and secondly it provides the ability to secure compliance with information and consultation rights. That does not seem particularly necessary.
	From a legal and commercial perspective, it is inappropriate to amend TUPE to address private equity acquisitions and not trade acquisitions. In practice, post-acquisition, a trade buyer is more likely to wish to achieve greater synergies with their own business, and give rise to job losses, than a private equity house that is investing in a business with a view to making it work more effectively and prosperously, so that it can avoid selling the business in a distressed situation in future. Private equity works as a business not just in one way, but in many ways. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Nottingham, East, suggested, private equity can be used not to take over a company and cause it uncertainty, but to shore it up and ensure that no future sale causes workers uncertainty. Implementing the Bill and bringing private equity acquisitions into the scope of TUPE could give rise to an uneven marketplace and provide trade buyers with an unfair competitive advantage.
	I should be very interested to know what view the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs takes of the Bill. I do not know whether the Government have the appetite to introduce further legislation regulating employee consultation or trade union derecognition rights. I am not sure whether that kind of action was part of the Warwick agreement that the Government signed up to before the last election, when they had run out of money. I am not aware of any Government proposal to introduce a similar measure. I should be grateful to learn from the Minister whether the Government—or, as the hon. Member for Ribble Valley asked, the European Union—plan to introduce any regulation on the subject.
	What transactions might be caught under the Bill? The Bill applies to the acquisition and disposal of substantial shareholdings, as we have discussed. A "substantial shareholding" may mean an interest in shares such that the undertaking holding the interest can exercise a dominant influence over the employee and entity. As I said earlier, I do not know what constitutes a controlling interest. Would it be 51 per cent., or a lower figure? As my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley, and for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), said, we do not know how a private equity company is defined. That could be dealt with in separate regulations. It is also unclear what would come within the scope of "connected purposes"—a phrase used in the Bill.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend may well be right. He is certainly more expert than I am at understanding parliamentary Bills and the language therein. His definition may well be right. I should certainly be grateful if the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon expressed their understanding. When the hon. Member for Nottingham, East winds up, perhaps he will clarify the point and say how he understands the position.
	The Bill would make the information and consultation obligations that apply to business sales apply to equity transfers, too. Vendor and purchaser of the substantial shareholding would be required to inform and consult employee representatives about any measures that are proposed relating to the acquisition. More onerously than in the context of a business sale, the Bill requires employees to be given information on the five-year period following the acquisition concerning the structure, the economic and financial situation of the vendor, the purchaser, the employing entity, the probable development of the employer's business, the probable development of production and sales, and probable trends in investment, employment, organisational changes, working and production methods, mergers, cuts, closures and redundancies.
	Employers may be particularly interested in all those things, but it is difficult to know whether it would be fair to make a business provide all that information. It may not know those things itself. In my experience, the most successful businesses are those that communicate best with their employees anyway. I am not entirely sure that a successful business needs to be told to keep its staff informed of any developments; most of them already do that.
	According to the Bill, training and assistance must be provided to employee representatives, so that they can deal with and respond to information provided as part of the consultation exercise. It is important to consider the penalties that may apply to businesses that do not follow the provisions in the Bill. Failure to comply with the consultation regulations would give employees or their representatives, including trade union representatives, the right to apply to court for an order seeking compliance. The court would have the power to prevent the share sale until the consultation obligations had been satisfied. Those obligations are rather too onerous for the market. They could well act as a deterrent to those who want to invest in companies. As I have made clear, the aim in some investments is to shore up a company that is under threat, and not just to take it over. The provision could therefore undermine the rights of workers and give them less confidence; I am sure that that would be an unintended consequence.
	I think that I am right in saying—the hon. Member for Nottingham, East, might be able to help me on this point—that the Bill provides that no changes may be made to the terms and conditions of employment of employees in connection with the share acquisition, unless there is an economic, technical or organisational reason to do so.

Philip Davies: I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. Some of the provisions might go beyond the TUPE regulations, so it is helpful to know that he would be prepared to move amendments in Committee if necessary.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley mentioned the CBI, which opposes to the Bill. Its view is that while some deals have resulted in short-term job losses, they are more than made up in the longer term by subsequent growth in businesses and employment. It does not believe that there is any logic in applying TUPE to private equity transfers because TUPE was designed to provide protection for employees where there is a change of employer. In a private equity transfer, there is no change of employer, so continuity of employment on existing terms and conditions is already protected for workers. That is why, to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Lewisham, West, the CBI does not believe that the Bill is necessary. It believes that any extension would not add significant additional protection for the workers, but could lead to more complex and lengthy transactions, which might damage the UK economy.
	My main purpose in opposing the Bill is to ensure that we do not damage UK business. The Bill's promoter wishes to protect workers' rights. The CBI's view is that it will not do a great deal to achieve his objectives, but it could do a great deal to damage my objectives.

Nigel Evans: I wish.
	The Government think that pre-legislative scrutiny is a good idea. I was not so sure to begin with, but I now think that it has merit, and that applies to private Members' Bills, too. It is important that we consult all the organisations that would be affected by any Bill proposed in the House. We should know the view of the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the trade unions. Of course, we should get in the trade unions and find out what they have to say about such legislation, too.
	The right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill spoke with passion about some of the abuses that have taken place in firms that he is familiar with. Those abuses should be driven out of the system. We must protect the rights of workers who feel that they are powerless against people who exploit them for no merit other than simple profit and who have no interest in employees who help to the company's profits. I believe 100 per cent. in all that and endorse it. We must be enlightened. Companies that recognise the value of the people who work for them—the people who create the wealth from which employers derive their profits—are the very ones that invest in their workers, recognise the people who help them and consult them as a matter of course, not because they must do so under legislation but because it is the right thing to do. Therefore, I very much believe that, where abuses exist, they should be exposed, and if it takes legislation to get rid of them, that is exactly what should happen.

Tim Yeo: No, I am sorry, but I will not have time to let the Minister get to his feet.
	The Policy Studies Institute concluded that the change would reduce energy use and fuel bills, which was confirmed by the National Grid Company. A more recent study, which took place since I introduced my Bill last year, showed that the change would reduce the overall UK electricity price in winter by as much as 5 per cent. because early evening peaks in demand would be reduced, and the need for as much power to be kept on standby would be obviated. Those findings were also confirmed by the National Grid Company's modelling a year ago and would also address the matter of fuel poverty, which is rightly of great concern in many parts of the House.
	There are other, unquantifiable benefits for energy, such as people's greater willingness to use public transport or to walk or cycle in the hours of daylight. Only today I received an e-mail from someone who says that they often cycle through my constituency and would do so far more often if they could complete their journeys in daylight.
	The third reason the policy would be so advantageous is the boost that it would give to tourism, Britain's fifth largest industry. The change would lead to more inward visits, generating an extra £1 billion of inward revenue and thereby reducing the huge balance of payments deficit that currently exists in the tourist industry. It is estimated that a further £2 billion of spending would be generated in the leisure sector if people had the opportunity to visit historic sites and other attractions in the hours of daylight in the afternoon. The tourist industry is important to Britain. It has jobs that cannot be exported to the Asia-Pacific region. It is a 21st-century industry and we should give it as much help as we can.
	The fourth reason for the change is quality of life. Again, only this morning I received an e-mail that said:
	"I think this might be the single biggest thing that the government could do to improve my quality of life. Like most people who work full time, I have no time for leisure in the morning; I get up and get to work. My leisure time is when I get home from work, at about 7 pm. Yet at that time it's only light enough to go for a run, or potter in the garden, for about four months of the year. To extend that to perhaps six or seven months would mean...a huge amount to me"—
	and indeed to millions of other people.
	There would be health benefits, too. The opportunity for more physical recreation and outdoor activity would help to address the problem of obesity and its associated consequences, with great, unquantified savings to the national health service, including through avoiding lost production capacity.
	On energy use, I should also mention that the amount of carbon emissions saved is not insubstantial, but equivalent to half the current amount of electricity being generated from renewable sources. That would amount to 15 per cent. of the European Union's challenging 2020 target, which Britain has accepted, to increase the amount of electricity produced from renewable sources. There would be advantages to those, particularly in Scotland, who are concerned about the requirements for large numbers of wind farms. The Bill would be an easier way of achieving a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
	The opportunity that the Bill provides is enormous. There are many other benefits, including for the Olympic games and training opportunities, with perhaps a chance for the children inspired by the games to participate in outdoor activities under better conditions. People who do business in Europe currently find it difficult to get to morning meetings in countries on continental European time. That difficulty would be eradicated.
	Most measures that come before the House that save lives, cut carbon dioxide emissions, reduce energy bills, boost an important industry and improve the health and well-being of many citizens carry a price tag, in the form of higher taxes or higher prices for consumers, or involve the imposition of more regulations and red tape on business. My Bill does none of those things. It is all gain and no cost—a change that carries no penalty for anybody.
	My Bill is an idea whose time has come, and I am certain that within 10 years the change will have been made, but each year that Parliament delays making it, another 100 lives are needlessly lost on the roads and another 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted. I hope that the Minister will use the seven minutes that remain to announce the Government's support for the measure. If he does not, he will have some searching questions to answer.
	If my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), the Opposition spokesman, has the chance, I know that he will make it clear that the Conservative party now feels sympathetically towards the policy. I hope that that sympathy will be translated into a strong commitment at the next election. If we had had a full day's debate today, I am confident that many hon. Members would have expressed their support for the Bill. I hope that one of them will pick up the same measure next year, if the Government have not already done so.